Goofs

When Hobbs calls time out to go to the mound and talk with the pitcher about not throwing the final game, Pop Fisher comes out of the dugout to break up the meeting. As he leaves the dugout steps he hits his left arm, the sign for a southpaw reliever to come into the game. But there is no pitching change.

During the game in which Roy Hobbs bats for the first time and knocks the cover off the ball, there are two different home-plate umpires: The ump who comes to the dugout to talk to Pop Fisher is not the same ump who later calls a strike on Hobbs and then stares him down.

After Hobbs splits "Wonderboy", he tells the bat boy to pick him a winner. The bat boy gives him a bat called "Savoy Special". When Hobbs hits the game winning home run, supposedly with "Savoy Special", you can see the lightning bolt from "Wonderboy" in his hands.

In the beginning, when Hobbs is waiting for the train to take him to New York, he has only one bag. The trombone case in which he carries Wonderboy is not there, but when he arrives at Knights Field, he is carrying the case. [This is explained/corrected in the Director's Cut, which re-edits the film's opening into a flashback structure, showing Roy returning to his now-dilapidated childhood farmhouse to retrieve the bat.]

When Roy splinters "Wonderboy", the shot from behind home plate shows that the swing didn't break the bat. But as he walks back to the batter's box, the bat is in two pieces.

Bump Bailey's bronze plaque shown briefly after his funeral is misspelled "IN MEMORIUM"; the correct spelling is "MEMORIAM".

The Knights and Pirates play a one-game playoff to decide the National League pennant. In 1939, however, National League rules required a best-of-three playoff to determine the pennant winner if two teams were tied in first place at the end of the season.

The articles don't match the newspaper headlines about Hobbs and the Knights. Two examples are: (At around 50 mins) "Hobbs 2 Homers Sinks Pirates" is followed by the name of a celebrant at a church service and a list of his assistants; (At around 1hr 9 mins) the headline "Knights Do It Again: Lose 4-3" is followed by "continued from page 1" and an article about Bobby Riggs playing tennis.

After Hobbs gets poisoned at the party towards the end of the movie, he is seen in a hospital bed, which the bed is adjustable. Aviator Howard Hughes was hospitalized after a 1946 place crash which he did not like the hospital bed and had one of his engineers develop one so he could work which included being adjustable. Since The Natural is supposed to take place in the 1930's, Hobbs could not have been in a adjustable bed as Hughes had not created them until 1946.

Batboy Bobby Savoy is depicted as traveling with the Knights on their road trips to other National League ballparks. Actually, the home team provides batboys for visiting teams.

In the game where Hobbs breaks the Wrigley Field clock, his homer ends the game, as everyone in the stands begins to leave and Hobbs gets mobbed by the press. But since the Knights were the visitors, the Cubs get to bat last.

The movie depicts the 1939 season. Prior to the 1950 season the home team had the option to bat first or last so it was possible for the visiting team to bat in the bottom of an inning.

When Hobbs hits four home runs in Chicago, the announcer states on two occasions that it is the bottom of the inning when Hobbs bats. The NY Knights, as the visiting team, would have batted in the top of each inning.

The movie depicts the 1939 season. Prior to the 1950 season the home team had the option to bat first or last so it was possible for the visiting team to bat in the bottom of an inning.

On the occasions when Hobbs hits significant home runs, there are photographers within a few feet of home plate snapping flash photos. This was actually the custom at the time, and photographers were known to routinely be within 10-15 feet of plays as they happened. As technology improved, this was no longer necessary, but the practice was not formally banned by the National League until 1954, in part, after a photographer dictated a manager/umpire argument to a reporter and the accurate remarks were published by national news.

And, yes, these photographers were sometimes hit by foul balls, errant throws, or collided with fielders or runners trying to make a play.

Hobbs wins the game with a home run in the bottom of the inning, but Hobbs's team, the New York Knights, are the visitors and their at bats are restricted to the bottom of the inning.

The movie depicts the 1939 season. Prior to the 1950 season, the home team had the option to bat first or last, so it was possible for the visiting team to bat in the bottom of an inning.

When Iris is reading the paper about Roy's slump, none of the headlines actually match the story being written about and seem totally unrelated to the headline. One example where the headline reads, "Knights at Wrigley Today," is actually about a polo tournament in Houston Texas.

Years later, when Hobbs makes just "one" pitch at the end of practice, the ball zooms across the plate and lodges in the net behind. A string can be seen attached to the ball as it lodges into the net.

Early on, a young Roy Hobbs is seen playing baseball with his father. Since Roy is 35 years old in 1939, this scene probably takes place around 1915. Young Roy and his father are sitting outside next to an old abandoned tractor. The tractor should have been relatively new and not in a state of disrepair, which reflects the tractor's true age in 1984 (i.e., the time the movie was filmed rather than when the movie was set).

In the newspaper article shown in the coffee shop after Hobbs's first at bat, it states that he hit a stand-up triple and put the Knights ahead of the Phillies 4-3. In the actual scene, however, Hobbs only slides into third base, and the Knights actually won 5-4.

When Roy Hobbs bats at the end of the game, he takes a first pitch strike. He then takes a ball. With a 1-1 count, the reliever enters. The next pitch is a foul into the glass. This is following by a swing and a miss; Strike 3. The swing and miss sequence should have been edited to come before the foul into the press box. As presented on the reel, he should have struck out.

When Sam Simpson tells Max Mercy to wait until the following morning for background information on Roy, he reminds Mercy to bring the sawbuck he owes Simpson for winning the bet in the contest against the Whammer. Mercy replies that breakfast will be on him. But in 1923, a sawbuck ($10) would have been worth far more than a breakfast, so Max treating Sam to a meal would not have nearly been a fair exchange for losing the bet.

When Roy gets back to the dugout after hitting the home run that shatters the clock in Wrigley Field, fans get up and leave as if the game is over, even though it's only a one-run game. But as Roy crossed home plate, Cubs players were still standing at their positions on the field as if they expect the game to continue.

When Hobbs gets his first hit and what's left of the ball makes it to the outfield, it shows a fielder sloshing thru the rain puddle wearing stirrup socks that are the Knights color (lighter blue) instead of the Pirates players color of a very dark blue which the players in the field would have been wearing.

At the beginning of one of the games the National Anthem is being sung. Singing at the beginning of baseball games started during World War I, but stopped with the end of the war. It did not begin again until American entered World War II, some three years after the movie takes place.

In the scene depicting the team on a passenger train streaking across country as the Knights make their "run" at the pennant, the drumhead on the observation car says "Super Chief". This would make it a Santa Fe high-speed train running daily between Chicago and Los Angeles. Since the movie is set in 1939, they would not be riding that train because there were no major league baseball teams west of St. Louis in those days.

The events of the film take place during the 1939 season. Yet Roy hits a home run that shatters the clock at Wrigley Field - an object that wasn't installed until 1941.

Towards the end of the movie Roy makes a call to Iris on a club house pay phone. The payphone is a 3 slot pay phone which wasn't in service until the 1950s.

Several news photographers shooting with 4x5 Graphic press cameras are using Pacemaker models (aluminum lens boards) that weren't introduced until the early '50s. The Graphics with dark wood lens boards are in period.

In Roy Hobb's final at bat, the first pitch is called a ball by the umpire, but the play-by-play man on the soundtrack calls it a strike. The Closed Captions have the Umpire calling strike as well as the radio play-by-play man. The Umpire also seems to have his calls mixed up, with no motion for the first "strike", and then a strike motion for the 2nd pitch a ball, which makes it obvious this was re-edited to accommodate the happier ending This would match the original ending, where Roy Hobbs would be striking out to the new Nebraska farm boy John Roades.

In the at-bat when Roy Hobbs breaks the clock, before he sees the woman from his past, strike two is a swing and a miss in the audio, but visually, Roy Hobbs connects with the ball. The hit ball can be seen streaking across the top of the picture.

After Hobbs' first game where he played with the team, he is walking through the tunnel with photographers all around him shooting pictures. One photographer to Hobbs' right shoots a shot, changes the flashbulb, and shoots again. He never flips the film back in the camera so he would have a double exposure. The process would show him putting in the dark slide, flipping the film back over and reinserting it, then removing the dark slide for the next shot.

During the National Anthem at Knights Field, just as the camera reaches the end of the Knights lineup, a man in khaki U.S. Army uniform can be seen saluting in the stands. He is saluting with the palm facing outward in the British style, not with the palm down in the American style.